The Action Agenda.

At moments of inflection, clarity is key. Knowing “where” you’re going and “why” is helps you get to the next level. And also “how.” 

Enter the Action Agenda — a tool designed for teams with vision and velocity, aimed at defining, prioritizing and executing growth objectives.

The Action Agenda revolves around three critical questions: Where are we going? Why are we focused on this path? And how are we going to get there? By addressing these questions, we create a structured framework that not only defines the priority for the business but also aligns the team towards achieving it. In effect, we help you get clear on go-to-market. 

Core elements of the Action Agenda

Where - Direction Setting

First, we pinpoint P0. What’s the one high-level, high-priority goal that aligns with this phase of the business journey, setting the stage for what’s next? This goal is supported by three objectives, each serving the primary aim, ensuring efforts are concentrated and directed.

Why - Purpose Clarification

Next, we delve into the "why." Why this goal, these objectives? It’s about establishing a prioritization framework, essential for the team to grasp the rationale behind these choices. This understanding is crucial, enabling autonomous, efficient decision-making aligned with the overarching goal.

How - Path Crafting

Then, the "how." How do we get there? We lay out an Action Agenda, a program of tangible, tactical tasks for the team to execute. These tasks are part of workstreams, reviewed at a set cadence, ensuring adaptability and alignment towards achieving our objectives.

Refining Focus and Strategy

The Action Agenda goes beyond the broad strokes. It dives deep into alignment and execution nuances. This involves alignment of your current endeavors with imminent milestones, an examination of ongoing priorities against actual efforts and a clear-eyed view of the existing challenges. Through this granular exploration, we sharpen the focus, culminating in a summary statement that crisply articulates the goals and the strategy forward.

The final leg of the Action Agenda involves a detailed action plan, assigning clear ownership for each goal, backed by a plan comprising timelines and resource requirements. This phase is rounded off with strategic resource allocation and a strong communication plan, setting a solid foundation for continuous learning, iteration and alignment.

The Action Agenda is part methodology, part navigational tool for early-stage companies at critical junctures, ensuring focused, purpose-driven progress towards growth objectives.

Nailing your “now”

In the earliest stages, certain elements are non-negotiable: a solid team, clear differentiation, a well-defined TAM and evidence of traction. But, there's another critical component often overlooked: the art of creating a sense of urgency, the compelling "why now." This element is essential, not just for captivating investors, but also for striking a chord with potential customers.

In the early stages of fundraising, certain elements are non-negotiable: a solid team, clear differentiation, a well-defined Total Addressable Market (TAM) and evidence of traction. Yet, there's another critical component often overlooked: the art of crafting a sense of urgency, the compelling "why now." This element is essential, not just for captivating investors but also for striking a chord with potential customers.

To illustrate, let’s explore a narrative we crafted for an early-stage defense-tech startup with a hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) model. The example below isn’t just a collection of data points; it is a tool. It played a crucial role in guiding fundraising conversions, driving content development, and ensuring team alignment.

Create a Sense of Urgency: Make it clear why your solution is needed now. This could be driven by emerging trends, recent legislative changes, or a sudden shift in consumer behavior.

In our defense-tech example, the urgency was anchored in rapidly evolving security threats and the need for innovative solutions to address them in real-time. Where once theft and fraud were the dominant concerns, today, the retail sector is marked by a more sinister trend: violent acts and threats that not only harm businesses financially but also have a profound human cost. The risks facing retailers today are not just numerous but also increasingly violent, ranging from mass shootings and active assailants to guest-on-associate violence. Organized Retail Crime has also escalated, with tactics like smash-and-grab, firearm use and even flash mobs that threaten violence against both employees and customers.

Emphasize the Cost of Inaction: Articulate what's at risk if action is delayed. This part of the narrative is about making it clear that the cost of inaction is too great to ignore, thereby compelling immediate engagement with your solution.

For the defense-tech startup, the narrative underscored the potential consequences of not adopting new and agile security solutions—ranging from compromised safety to diminished customer experience to missed strategic advantages.

To support the thesis, we designed a survey to reach shoppers across the country. Nearly half of respondents said that safety concerns influence the frequency of their visits to retail stores. Even more compelling, 65% would choose a store with better security if given a choice between two similar retail spaces. These numbers signify the direct impact of safety on foot traffic and brand loyalty, which are key revenue drivers.

The urgency to adapt to this new risk landscape is not just about averting crises; it's about positively impacting ROI. A safer environment not only reduces potential liabilities but also increases customer footfall and loyalty while enhancing employee productivity. In the new era of retail, safety isn't just a feature; it's a KPI that directly contributes to business success. By acknowledging and acting on this new era of heightened retail risk, businesses can not only protect themselves but also seize the opportunity to innovate in ways that enhance ROI through increased safety and consumer trust.

Retailers that don't prioritize this dual focus on consumer experience and safety risk becoming marginalized.

Highlight Immediate Opportunities: Shine a light on the unique opportunities presented by the current landscape. For our example, an alarming rise in violence and the advent of new technologies like AI and machine learning represented a critical window of opportunity. The narrative emphasized how the startup's cutting-edge solutions were well-suited to address these challenges head-on.

By weaving these elements into your narrative, you not only underscore the urgency of your solution but also create a compelling case for why your startup stands out in the current moment. It's about painting a vivid picture that leaves your audience—be it investors or customers—feeling that the time to act is now.

A compelling “now” narrative is a key component of your North Story — the master storyline that unites everything you do, make and say.

Learn how Makeshift can help you nail your now. Contact us.

North Story.

At Makeshift, the core of our 'Make' phase and the guiding force for all that follows is embodied in a deliverable called the North Story. This framework is born from the fusion of two pivotal elements: the 'north star' and the 'brand story.'

North Star Meets Brand Story

In the startup world, the north star refers to a guiding principle, goal or metric that drives the strategic direction and decision-making process of the company. 

For startups, identifying a north star is crucial for a few reasons:

• Focus: It helps the team concentrate efforts on what matters most, ensuring resources are allocated efficiently.

• Alignment: It ensures that all team members are working towards a common goal, even as individual tasks and projects may vary.

• Measurement: It provides a clear metric or set of metrics that can be used to measure progress and success.

• Decision-making: When faced with tough choices, referring back to the North Star can help in making decisions that align with the long-term vision and goals of the startup.

Then there's the brand story – a cohesive narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings created by your brand. A brand story goes beyond mere specifications or features of your products or services. Instead, it connects with your audience by focusing on the values and experiences that your brand offers.

Here are some key elements of a brand story:

• Origin: How and why the company was founded. This often includes the founder's motivations, challenges they faced and their vision.

• Vision: The future goals and aspirations of the brand, showing a commitment to growth and improvement in line with its values.

• Purpose: What the company stands for, its core values, and what it aims to achieve beyond profit. This could relate to social, environmental or cultural goals.

• Products/Services: How the products or services fit not only into the brand's story, but also into people’s lives.  

• Journey: The evolution of the brand over time, including major milestones, setbacks, and successes. This shows resilience and commitment to the brand's values.

• People: The individuals behind the brand, including employees, customers, partners and influencers.  

A well-crafted brand story resonates with a target audience, building a connection that goes beyond the product, leading to brand loyalty and advocacy. It's an integral part of a brand's identity and marketing strategy.

While crucial, brand stories are sometimes relegated to the realms of brand marketing or seen as just tools for awareness.

North Story: A Fusion of Product and Purpose 

The North Story combines these two worlds. It's an expression of your company that is both rigorous and inspiring. Think of it as the DNA of your company – a comprehensive narrative that unifies and amplifies everything you do, make and say.

Here’s how we’ve seen teams use their North Story to drive cross-functional action: 

• Product: Guides product development, serving as a benchmark for the roadmap. It inspires the creation of new features and experiences and helps teams prioritize them.  

• UX and Design: Informs design language and user experience, impacting aspects like onboarding flows and retention strategies.  

• Brand Marketing: Sets the overarching tone for the company's presence across all discovery channels. It dictates the high-level narratives and communications, shaping how the brand is perceived in the market. This could range from the visual style of marketing materials to the themes of advertising campaigns.

• Product Marketing: Drives value messaging and influences customer interactions and sales enablement materials. It ensures that product marketing efforts align with the broader brand narrative, enhancing the product's market positioning.

• Growth and Content Marketing: Informs thought leadership and content creation, supercharging performance in the marketing funnel from top to bottom. It plays a significant role in content strategy, directing the themes and messages that resonate with target audiences and nurture leads.

• Sales: Becomes a tool for storytelling in customer interactions, sharpening messaging in sales conversations. It provides compelling reasons to believe in the product and the company, enriching everything from elevator pitches at events to detailed proposals.

• Operations: The North Story influences operational aspects like hiring strategies, cultural initiatives and compensation structures. It helps ensure that the company's internal operations and culture reflect and reinforce its external narrative.

Integrating the North Story into each of these departments ensures a coherent, unified approach to both product and brand development, aligning every aspect of the company with its core narrative. This alignment enhances cohesiveness and effectiveness in execution, fostering a strong, unified brand presence in the market. 

The North Story isn’t just about branding; it’s a compass that answers ‘why now’ and directs every department towards a common goal and sets you down the path towards Story-Market Fit.

The startpoint for solutions.

“A problem well-stated is a problem half solved.”

— Charles Kettering

Our ability to handle problems effectively is a critical indicator of our company's health and resilience. While various factors contribute to our performance and culture, our approach to problem-solving is a definitive measure of its operational maturity. It reflects the very ethos of our organization, shaping its path through both challenges and opportunities. Understanding how our company identifies, approaches and resolves problems offers a window into its core values and strategic competencies, transcending traditional performance metrics to reveal deeper insights into its potential for long-term success.

The Significance of Problem-Solving Culture

Great organizations, irrespective of their size or age, are distinguished by a robust culture of problem-solving. This trait starts at the top – as the saying goes, "the fish rots from the head." A positive approach to problem-solving involves welcoming challenges and encouraging transparency, as opposed to resorting to hyperbolic praise or burying heads in the sand.

This culture is particularly vital in early-stage organizations, where problems are nearly constant. The challenge is to address these issues in a resource-constrained environment. For a venture-backed business, where managing runway is crucial, the consequences of protracted problems can be dire. Therefore, fostering a culture that adeptly handles challenges becomes a linchpin for success.

Prioritizing Problem Definition

Working for and with early stage companies, the way we defined problems set the trajectory for either success or struggle. The most effective problem-solving cultures I’ve observed are those that prioritize a rigorous definition of the problem rather than rushing to solutions.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

— Albert Einstein

Like Kettering (famed inventor and Head of Research at GM), Einstein underscores the importance of thoroughly understanding a problem before attempting to solve it. A poorly stated problem leads to misinterpretation and confusion. By investing time in comprehensively defining the problem, much of the subsequent analysis becomes more targeted and efficient, eliminating the redundancy that often accompanies a muddled understanding.

In the high-pressure environment of startups, there’s a common pitfall: the rush to find immediate solutions. This urgency, often fueled by the desire for quick results or just glorified “agile methodology,” can lead to a superficial understanding of the issues at hand. Racing to solutions without fully grasping the problem can result in misaligned resources, ineffective strategies, and ultimately, solutions that fail to address the core issue. It can create a cycle of quick fixes that don't provide sustainable or scalable results, leading to compounded problems down the line.

This approach not only drains resources but can also demoralize teams when repeatedly facing unresolved or recurring challenges. Taking the time to define and understand a problem fully, although seemingly slower, builds a foundation for more effective and enduring solutions, ensuring that the efforts of the team are directed towards genuinely impactful outcomes.

Defining Problems Effectively

To develop a well-stated problem, consider the following steps:

1. Ask the Right Questions: Start by asking questions that probe the problem deeply. Questions like “What exactly is the problem?” “Why is this a problem?” and “What are the consequences of not solving it?” help in gaining clarity.

2. Gather Diverse Perspectives: Encourage input from different team members. Diverse perspectives can provide a more rounded understanding of the problem, uncovering aspects you might not have considered.

3. Break Down the Problem: Complex problems often consist of smaller, more manageable components. Breaking the problem down can make it easier to understand and tackle.

4. Identify the Root Cause: Use tools like the 5 Whys technique to drill down to the root cause of the problem. Understanding the underlying cause is key to defining the problem accurately.

5. Use Clear, Concise Language: Once you have a grasp on the problem, articulate it in simple, unambiguous terms. A well-defined problem should be easily understandable to anyone in the organization.

6. Prioritize and Categorize: When resources are limited, you have to prioritize problems based on their impact on the business. Categorizing problems as helps in focusing efforts where they are most needed.

The way we handle problems speaks volumes about our culture and its potential for success. Encouraging a culture that rigorously defines problems before jumping to solutions can transform the way challenges are approached and resolved. By focusing on precise problem definition, we can foster a more effective, efficient and collaborative problem-solving environment. This approach not only streamlines the process of finding solutions but also empowers teams, boosts performance and ultimately contributes to growth.

Manage what matters.

“When the product is wrong, nothing else matters. When the product is right, everything else matters.”

— Les Wexner

Recently, I reconnected with an old client, a seasoned CMO with experience in multiple publicly traded companies. During our conversation, he shared this unforgettable quote.

In 2024, this might sound like a contemporary critique from Silicon Valley's startup scene, perhaps an iconic founder at a TED Talk. But it's not. This insightful gem comes from Les Wexner, the founder of The Limited, which evolved into Limited Brands, encompassing Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Inc., Express and Bath & Body Works.

What's remarkable about this phrase is its enduring relevance. It's a universal business truth, transcending technological advancements and the rush to innovate.

When the product is wrong.

If you've been in an early-stage organization, you're familiar with the struggle of a product that doesn't resonate or sell as expected. In these moments, nothing else seems to matter. The entire focus shifts to resolving the product-market fit (PMF) problem.

When this happens, it's a time for cross-functional teamwork, engaging with customers, gathering insights, and refining roadmaps. When the product is wrong, it's not just a product issue; it's a company-wide challenge that demands a unified response.

It is very hard to succeed if you don’t offer something people want. For your offering to resonate, it must be functional, competitively priced and solve a real problem. It should be easy to understand and relate to, and it must be both scalable and supportable to meet growing demands.

We'll explore these crucial elements in more detail in a future post. But for now, let's shift our focus to…

When the product is right.

Conversely, experiencing an organization that has found or is finding PMF is exhilarating. Everything feels more manageable, smoother and up-and-to-the-right. But PMF alone isn't sufficient. As Wexner said, “When the product is right, everything else matters.” These are the necessary components to manage and maintain company value:

• Product: What you offer; must solve a real problem.

• Market: Overall demand; the audience you serve.

• Model: How you operate and generate revenue.

• Channel: Pathways for delivery; sales and distribution.

Each of these components combine to form your company story at any given time. Your story says more than what you do; it conveys why you do it - your mission, vision and motivation.

Each of these fits are crucial and interdependent. Success in one area can bolster and is reliant on success in others. Building a significant and successful company requires a harmonious alignment of these key elements:

• Product-Market Fit: Being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.

• Product-Channel Fit: Ensuring the product suits the chosen sales and distribution channels.

• Product-Model Fit: Aligning the product with a viable business model.

• Model-Market Fit: Tailoring the business model to market demands.

• Model-Channel Fit: Synchronizing the business model with delivery channels.

• Channel-Market Fit: Matching distribution channels to the target market.

• Story-Market Fit: Synchronizing your brand story with your evolving product and market.

Understanding and attacking product-market fit is just the start. True success lies in the intricate balance of aligning all facets of your business - product, market, model, and channels. And, using your story to unify and amplify them all.

Remember Les Wexner's timeless wisdom. It's not just about having the right product; it's about ensuring that every aspect of your business resonates with that product's journey and the market's evolving needs.

Your story is your product.

One truth deeply understood by early-stage operators is that Plan A rarely works out as planned. This unpredictability is the birthplace of the “pivot.” When you hear this term, it's probably in reference to the product or go-to-market strategy. Perhaps the company encountered a stumbling block with customers, saw a competitor overshadow their opportunity, or faced a feature that didn't perform as expected. The response? A pivot. A strategic change in direction towards achieving product-market fit. It's a hallmark of adaptability, and something at which adept teams excel.

Product-Market Fit

Marc Andreessen defines "product-market fit" as being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. It's about reaching a point where your target customers are not only buying and using your product but also advocating for it. This advocacy is crucial, especially as it fuels organic and non-paid growth, vital for acquiring consumers cost-effectively.

But here's a critical question: What happens to your brand story when your product pivots? If the change is minor, perhaps your existing narrative remains relevant. However, what if the pivot is significant, pivotal, or even iconic? Such shifts offer an opportunity to evolve or elevate your company's perception among customers or within the industry.

As your product grows and adapts, so too must your brand story. It's a delicate dance of ensuring your narrative aligns with your product at all times. Sometimes, the story may lead the product development; other times, it follows suit. Regardless, it must always be [re]fit for purpose to support your GTM and growth objectives.

Story-Market Fit

This brings us to the concept of “story-market fit” (SMF) – a term we use to describe the synergy between a company's narrative and its target market. It's about defining a story that resonates with your audience's needs, aspirations and challenges. When you achieve story-market fit, it means your brand narrative doesn't just describe what you do, but why you do it – the motivation, the mission and the vision that propels your company forward. This kind of storytelling can significantly enhance your brand's resonance with its target market, making your company's purpose and aspirations clear and relatable.

Navigating Pivots

When your product pivots, assess the impact on your brand story:

• Minor pivots: If the pivot is slight, your current story might still be relevant. Monitor customer feedback to ensure continued alignment.

• Major pivots: For significant changes, it's crucial to reevaluate your brand story. Ask yourself: How does this pivot affect our company's purpose, positioning and promise?

Achieving Story-Market Fit

Story-market fit is about synchronizing your brand story with your evolving product and market. Here's how you can achieve this:

• Identify Your Core Message: Understand the core of what your company stands for. What is the motivation driving your product? This should remain consistent even as your product evolves.

• Engage with Your Audience: Gather insights from your customers. What do they value about your product? How do they perceive your brand? Use this feedback to refine your story.

• Communicate the Why: Clearly articulate why your company exists and why your product matters. Your brand story should convey your passion and purpose, connecting emotionally with your audience.

• Lead with Value: Highlight how your product's evolution benefits the customer. Focus on the value you provide, not just the features.

• Stay Agile: Be ready to tweak your narrative as your market and product continue to evolve. Regularly review and adjust your brand story to ensure it remains relevant and resonant.

Your brand story is a living entity, just like your product. It should evolve alongside your product, reflecting changes and staying true to your core mission. It's not just about adjusting to changes but about seizing the opportunity to strengthen your connection with your audience. It ensures that as your product finds its place in the market, your brand story does too, authentically and impactfully.

By actively seeking story-market fit, you ensure that your brand remains dynamic and resonant, perfectly in tune with both your product's journey and the market's needs.